A variety of economy, technological, and administrative hurdles challenge healthcare facilities, such as hospitals, clinics, doctors' offices, etc., to provide quality care to patients. Economic drivers, less skilled staff, fewer staff, complicated equipment, and emerging accreditation for controlling and standardizing radiation exposure dose usage across a healthcare enterprise create difficulties for effective management and use of imaging and information systems for examination, diagnosis, and treatment of patients.
Healthcare provider consolidations create geographically distributed hospital networks in which physical contact with systems is too costly. At the same time, referring physicians want more direct access to supporting data in reports along with better channels for collaboration. Physicians have more patients, less time, and are inundated with huge amounts of data, and they are eager for assistance.